1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data access technology with respect to a plurality of recording media.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is a known data recording device which is provided with a plurality of medium attaching units such as card slots and which records data in recording media attached to the respective medium attaching units by a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) recording system. For example, in an image pickup device (which is a recording device such as a digital camera or a digital video camera), a recording medium such as a Secured Digital (SD) memory card (registered trademark) can be inserted and removed. The inserted recording medium can store a photographed image, an image obtained by editing the photographed image and the like as the data. An image pickup device having a communication function can transfer the image data and the like stored in the recording medium to an image processing device having a communication function, so that the data can be reproduced by the image processing device. A removable recording medium can be removed from the image pickup device, and can be inserted into the image processing device which includes a controller capable of accessing the recording medium. Moreover, the image processing device can read and reproduce the recorded data from the inserted recording medium.
In addition, in recent years, there has been realized a recording medium having a write protect function. As to this recording medium, write prohibition and permission are set to the recording medium itself, or the write prohibition and permission can be set to a certain region. The recording medium is also provided with a hardware switch or a password, so that the write prohibition and permission are set to the recording medium itself.
On the other hand, in recent years, with improvement of a performance of a solid image pickup device (CCD or the like), the size of an output image, and the number of frames per unit time in the whole screen have increased in the image pickup device. It is also demanded that the time from when photographing ends until the next photographing becomes possible, that is the photographing interval, be shortened. Owing to these factors, it is a requirement that the transfer speed of the data to the recording medium be increased.
Heretofore, to solve the problem, in the case where the image is continuously photographed, the photographed image may be temporarily stored in an internal memory of the image pickup device, and the photographed image is transferred from the internal memory to the recording medium at a time when all photographing ends. This can shorten the photographing interval. However, there is a restriction on the internal memory resource, and a problem has occurred that the photographing cannot be performed, if the internal memory is used up.
To solve this problem, a data recording device of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-245415 corresponding U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,900,010, and 6,233,654 can control the recording medium using the RAID recording system defined by function and performance to catch up with the high transfer speed. This device controls attachment and detachment of the recording medium so as to record subsequent information in the next inserted recording medium in a case where there is not any empty region in the recording medium.
The RAID recording system is used in the data recording device of the above document. Therefore, even when the recording medium is removed from the data recording device, and inserted into another information processing device, the data of the recording medium cannot be read. However, there has been a problem that the information processing device and the recording medium might cause an incorrect operation.
Furthermore, in the data recording device of Patent Document 1 described above, An order of the accesses of the RAID recording system is given to each of the card slots themselves into which the removable recording media are inserted. Therefore, when the recording medium is once removed, and inserted into another card slot of the same data recording device, the slot cannot be accessed by the RAID recording system. Therefore, when once removing the recording medium, and inserting the medium again for use, a user needs to memorize the card slot into which the removed recording medium has been inserted.